The White Reindeer

A woman marries in Lapland. Pirita's husband herds reindeer and is away with the herd for months. She is alone at home. One day she goes to the village shaman and asks for a remedy. He gives her something and asks a sacrifice. The rite is performed. From that day Pirita turns into a white reindeer at night. Hunters see her and go after her. At the moment they think they have her the animal kills them. Men in the village start disappearing and nobody knows why. Erik Blomberg directs; he wrote it with his wife Mirjami Kuosmanen, who has the lead. Kalervo Nissilä, Åke Lindman and Jouni Tapiola are in the cast. It is a Finnish production, made in 1952. The film competed at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival and took the jury's special award for a film of legend; the jury was led by Jean Cocteau. It opened late in America and was among the films awarded best foreign film at the 1956 Golden Globes. Mirjami Kuosmanen won the Jussi award in Finland for the part. Its ground is the storytelling of the Sami; the film uses those legends directly. Blomberg was also the cinematographer; snow and light are the narrative's real material. The film uses few elements of horror and builds its tension through landscape. The narrative does not build the woman as a monster; the transformation starts with a wish and the wish comes out of loneliness. Its limit is age; it is short, the events simple, and the pace slow. Who it is for: viewers who like Scandinavian cinema and folk horror. Who it is not for: it is old, simple, and the ending bitter.